The Supernatural Society

Gr 4-6–The first of Ogle’s new trilogy introduces three unlikely heroes-in-the-making tasked with saving their town of East Emerson, MA, from destruction. Versatile Timothy Andrés Pabon distinctly animates the print into aural mirth. Pabon is earnest as Will, who’s been uprooted from Brooklyn by his Latinx mother after his white father left. Pabon turns feisty as Korean American athlete Ivy, the older of two transracial adoptee siblings across the street. He becomes deadpan formal as Ivy’s younger genius brother, Linus, who is Black. Only Will and Ivy can see the monsters—werewolves and wraiths, sure, but also wekufes, a wanyd and Abenaki Wa-won-dee-a-megw; “man of science” Linus doesn’t yet believe. Pabon’s also memorable as MIT PhD-ed witch Oracle Jones, but his ovation-deserving performance belongs to snarky storyteller Adam Monster, whose definition of melancholy induces Pabon to weep hysterical tears.